Final papers and Christmas sewing

I made it through the first semester of my PhD. It was quite a ride. The month of December has flown by with papers to write, grading to complete, exams to proctor and gifts to sew! Some days I didn't sleep very much but I got it all done!

My friends and I had a wonderful Christmas dinner on the 14th of December. It was our first time hosting Christmas in our new house! In preparation, I did a little Christmas crafting; I made a holiday felt garland.

All it took was some pinking shears lots of felt and some time!

Here is a close up of the garland.The technique is really simple! I sewed down the centre each circle. I let 4 stitches go in between each circle to give them some space, they hang better that way. 

 I used painters tape to mark the space for the circles so the stitching would be more of less in the middle. 

Here it is installed in my dinning area. Later on I added some Christmas lights to give it extra Christmas flair and it looks great!

After our christmas dinner we had a gift exchange. I was secret Santa to my friend Theresa and made her 3 open wide zipper pouches (tutorial here). I wanted them to be really personalized so I added pieced tops to make each one unique. 

Macbook for scale ;)

Here is the detail on the medium bag, I used a lot of scraps here,it kind of felt like doodling with fabric

Mini flying geese for the smallest bag

I tried my hand at making printed labels with great success, here is the biggest bag with the label ready to sew. I'll have more on the labels in a future post, but let me just say sewing them on after the bags were completed was not the best idea. I ended up having to open up the lining to make it easier. Save yourself the headache, plan ahead and sew them to the lining before assembly!!

All three bags with their labels ready to be sewn.

The bags were a great success, Theresa loved them! What do you think?

Happy holidays everyone

Vivianna

A little lamb for my little nephew

My life has changed a lot recently, I got married last year, bought a house this year and started a PhD this fall in a city 2 hours away from that house, my family and friends. All these changes have been amazing in many ways, although being far from my friends and family has definitely been the hardest part. 

By far the change that took me the most by surprise was the birth of my nephew, now you might be thinking, didn't I have 9 months to prepare for this? Yes, you're right, my sister is not a candidate for the show "I didn't know I was pregnant". The day he was born was a little surprising, I was away at school. I had warned my twin sister that of all the days for her to go in labour, Tuesday is the absolute worst (for me, of course that is the most important part of her labour, right? my schedule) and of course that is the day she went into labour (thank you Murphy's law!)

So here I was at the library getting updates by text message from my friend Theresa who was with my sister at the beginning of her labour. I felt excited, and also extremely far away and also sad. Such a mix of emotions to feel. I knew there was nothing I could really do to help my sister, but I knew that I wanted to be there to be part of this awesome moment. When her water broke I was kind of incredulous, I had been in denial until then, sure in the fact that this could not happen without me being there! I remember thinking, really this is happening now, when I just can't be there?? And I was also thinking, wow this is the moment!! How amazing I will have a nephew soon! I was in charge of the telephone tree to announce to everyone that the big moment was on hand! A very exciting and fun job. It is perhaps the best news you can call anyone with!  

Did I mention that while all this was happening, I was at the library to work on a very important presentation for the next day? Well I was, I'm sure you can tell that I was distracted to say the least! It was a torturous 12 hours for me, feeling far away and stressed about a presentation that I didn't want to be doing in the first place. I am still amazed I got through that presentation the next day on 3 hours of sleep. You guessed it, I only really got down to work after my nephew was born, meaning I went to bed at 4am! I like to joke that my sleep deprivation that night was in solidarity with my sister, her fiance and my nephew, but the truth is that it was part of a struggle that I am almost always losing, a work-life balance.  

The call that I got from my sister about an hour after she gave birth was very special and I will always remember it, the first photos were incredible. So the birth of my nephew was not all that surprising, but the thing that did surprise me was how much I love him. He's truly the greatest baby on earth. Yes, you are also right in thinking that I am completely biased in this opinion, but thats ok, its my opinion right? My friends had a bet as to who would cry when they held him, and I "won" that honour. He is truly perfect.  

What did I do to prepare for the birth of my perfect nephew? I made him a stuffed animal and baby blanket of course!!! Check out little Lamby, you can find the great pattern here.

The pattern is relatively easy, it just requires some patience and precise sewing. if you look at his face below you will see that I embroidered all his facial features, I did that because this stuffed lamb is for a baby, and I wanted to avoid any choking hazards. I also pre-washed all my fabrics to get rid of unhealthy residues and dyes. The harder part of this pattern was sewing his "hair", it is so curvy, I really had to sew slowly and I did have to get my friend Mr. Seam ripper involved a time or 2. The longest part was definitely the embroidery, but that is probably because I am a very novice embroiderer. 

So here is Lamby's face all ready to be sewn to the rest of his body. I unfortunately I did not take any photos of the previous steps, but let me tell you that it was very fun to pre-stuff the little arms and legs and to make the little ears!!

The hardest part of this was sewing all together when the limbs were all tucked inside. It was very bulky and at times I had trouble shoving little Lamby in the right position to be sewn. (See the pattern for more information on this step).

Here he is all sewn together and stuffed part way and almost ready to be hand sewn shut. (if you look at the right side of his torso, you will see the opening) Again apologies for not getting step by step photos, I was just to excited to see him stuffed!

Here is Little Lamby chilling at my dinning table, watching netflix patiently waiting for my nephew to be born.

I made a blanket for my nephew, that I knew would be super useful while he was still in a stroller (so for a while yet). It is very easy to make, a cotton fabric on top and a pretty orange minky on the bottom, just sew with right sides together, leaving a 3 inch opening to reverse it. Then stitch it shut. I also added a line of stitching all the way around about half an inch from the edge to hold the sides together and also to make it look more finished. Thats it, it took me about an hour. 

Here is my finished gift, a baby blanket and a cute little lamb stuffed animal!

Lamby likes his new blanky, but don't worry, he knows he will have to share it with my nephew.

What do you think of Lamby? have you every made a cute gift for your family or friends? Share it in the comments :)

Vivianna

Wedding crafting

I first started really getting into crafting for my wedding, I wanted to give my bridesmaids each a nice, personal gift. I didn't like many of the options available online, I found they were either too expensive or too cookie cutter. So, I decided to make my own! I spent hours on pinterest searching for inspiration and easy fun things I could make.  I decided to sew a cute makeup bag and a customized tote bag for each bridesmaid so that they could put all the other little things I gave them that I thought they may need on the day of my wedding. 

The first item I tackled was the tote bag. The project was simple enough I used a combination of 2 techniques (1 & 2 you can decided which one you prefer, I liked using a stencil for the letters because I don't have a steady hand for painting)

Each small tote bag has the bridesmaid's initial on it. Rather than buying a stencil for the letters, I found a font I liked and printed out each of the letters the size I wanted. Then, this is the long part, I cut each letter out leaving the white paper intact that became my stencil. I reinforced the A's with tape since there wasn't much holding the bar together. For an extra touch for my maid of honour, I added an extra ring on the top left corner of the "G" bag. The bags have been a success and they are still in use today!

The next project was a lot more labour intensive, but absolutely worth it! I made these awesome little bags.  The pattern is available here, it is so easy to use and makes the process enjoyable. 

I chose an individual colour for each bridesmaid that I thought matched their personality. To make them all feel like they are part of a set, I used the same fabric for the top band. It is fabric that comes from a dress I wore to my bachelor graduation, I thought it was nice symbolically. I also chose zippers that went well with the bag as a whole. The primarily yellow bag is mine, I inverted the colours to differentiate them.

After a few hours of sewing and crafting each bridesmaid's tote bag contained an eye mask, kleenex, tic-tacs, hair ties, bobby pins, manicure kit, safety pins and make up bag

Stressful jewelry roll

Today is the last day of my reading week, the last half of the semester and all the work I have to do before the it ends is looming over me. I should have done more work this week to prevent many late nights that are coming. But, instead of facing that I decided last night to procrastinate some more (because why not?!) and make a jewelry roll for myself. I bought this pattern a few years ago and never got around to trying and I thought it was the perfect quick and easy project for a night of crafting. Sadly, I was mistaken and spent a frustrating evening and afternoon today trying to figure it out.

I almost always watch a movie when I am sewing, something that I can follow by listening and glancing at occasionally. Last night I chose I Give It A Year with Rose Byrne and Ana Farris. It is not a very good movie generally and became very irritating when I kept making mistakes cutting out my pattern! Skip the movie! This afternoon I picked up where I left off sans movie but still lacked focus.

Of course once I was finished with my jewelry roll, it seemed so simple and easy! I plan to make more as Christmas gifts, but alas, this was not a stress-free weekend of sewing. 

Here is the fabric I chose:

The interior fabric is gorgeous, the scalloped stripes are just so cute, but because it is a stripe it was hard to work with and I found myself obsessed with trying to cut and sew everything perfectly straight. This is something to keep in my for your fabric choices. The exterior fabric is one of my favourites lately, and I have made many things with it, as you will see when I share other projects I have worked on. The cotton batting is a 100% cotton and left over from a quilt that I made. The zippers are mismatched only because I didn’t have 2 zippers the same colour! Thankfully they look cute together.

One of the hardest parts of this project was that I needed a zipper foot, which I don’t have. So, I substituted a zipper foot for a rolled hem foot and it worked like a charm!

Here it is all done, I’m pretty happy with it, I think I may make some changes to the pattern for future presents, but all in all I am pleased

I decided to use the interior fabric for the ties and I love the contrast when it's all tied together

Here it is all opened up and ready to use!

 Here it is filled my jewelry, ready to be taken to school with me! 

What do you think?